Russian Invasion of Ukraine Megathread

[kuuu]

In my opinion, unless he's terminally retarded, he would understand that a full mobilization would mean the death of millions of hohols. Extermination was a harsh word to use, though, lol. He probably doesn't want to kill every single Ukrainian hitler-style, but he probably wouldn't care much if a lot of them died.

Fair enough. It is true that casualties are seemingly just numbers for him. Friend or foe. He doesn't seem to explicitly hate Ukrainians tho. They just happen to be the enemy and in war you kill your enemies. No animosity beyond that. At least as I understand him so far.

 

[JosephStalin]

I'm not talking about the capture of equipment, but the effect that equipment has on the Russian army, and how they might translate this experience into countermeasures in the future.

You're acting as though the Russians are getting steamrolled, or that they're fighting the equivalent of central African tribesmen with sharp sticks. The Ukrainian army is/was quite large, despite being retarded and corrupt. They've since been supplied with tonnes upon tonnes of materiel from western countries. Their light infantry forces are well equipped, if nothing else. I might similarly ask how much of the billions in aid the west is supplying to The Ukraine is actually helping the common soldiery, and how much is being resold to some tinpot African dictator as we speak?

Desert Storm I I will concede as a success.

I have no idea why you'd think that Russia stands to lose territory. They are clearly winning this war.

Have already mentioned lessons learned and my concerns about the Russian ability to make the most of the lessone learned.

The war hasn't gone the way the Russians first expected or planned for. They were banking on a short, sharp decapitation strike. Didn't happen. To be sure, this happens in most, if not all wars, to varying extents. The aggressor plans to do A, expecting reaction and result B from the one attacked. "No plan survives contact with the enemy." Kyiv was proven unattainable, and now the Russians have moved away from Kharkiv, hoping to make and keep gains in the southeast. The Russians aren't doing as well as they expected. The Rodina itself has been attacked; am sure that never entered any Russian planning. And sadly, believe this war has a ways to go.

Am sure a certain amount of aid provided Ukraine has ended up sold/stolen. However, believe the corruption problem is far worse on the Russian side. Simply no reason to provide combat troops operational rations that expired four or five years ago, for example. Suggest if all the money provided for the Russian Army over the years had been used properly the Russians would be doing much better in this war.

 

[A_throwaway_name62919]

Good find.

Makes me wonder what the Russians intend on using the island for, besides turning it into an unsinkable missile/artillery base within range of Odessa.

I didn't know it was possible to carry on a conversation with a mouthful of dick, but there it is.

Probably mostly missile battery/defense. The sinking of the Moskova left a sizable hole in their Black Sea fleet missile defense. Getting some platforms in place on Snake Island would largely replace it and make it easier to pressure south/eastern Ukraine. They also want to deny it to Ukraine as Ukraine getting missile platforms on the island would make the Black Sea much more hazardous for the Russian fleet.

In general while the Black Sea is kind of a low priority front in the war, it's not irrelevant. As it stands, the Black Sea fleet can blockade Ukraine's ports, but Russia cannot reinforce it. So if Ukraine's missiles and air force manage to sink enough of the right ships, Ukraine's ports become essentially uncontested as only Russia's air force could deter ships from making port at Ukraine and would need to brave Ukraine's air defenses to do so. Obviously Russia isn't interested in making that long shot easier for Ukraine to achieve, hence the fighting over the otherwise unremarkable Snake Island.

 

[Hell on Earth]

I'm not talking about the capture of equipment, but the effect that equipment has on the Russian army, and how they might translate this experience into countermeasures in the future.

You're acting as though the Russians are getting steamrolled, or that they're fighting the equivalent of central African tribesmen with sharp sticks. The Ukrainian army is/was quite large, despite being retarded and corrupt. They've since been supplied with tonnes upon tonnes of materiel from western countries. Their light infantry forces are well equipped, if nothing else. I might similarly ask how much of the billions in aid the west is supplying to The Ukraine is actually helping the common soldiery, and how much is being resold to some tinpot African dictator as we speak?

Desert Storm I I will concede as a success.

I have no idea why you'd think that Russia stands to lose territory. They are clearly winning this war.

The Russians didn't learn from their experiences in Chechnya and now they repeated the same mistakes like in Grozny.

But now they decided to engage in attritional warfare and that type of warfare just puts a lot more bodies into the meat grinder.

Everyone expected them to capture everything east of the dnieper but they are constantly minimizing their objectives because they're really struggling with Manpower shortages

2 weeks ago it was encircling donbass but now it's encircling just Severodonetsk and crossing the river. (With heavy losses)

Their offensive power will run out in 2-3 months unless they mobilize and train the reserves but that would be a very unpopular move.

There's just no way they have the capacity to keep attacking after taking Donbass .

 

[Aidan]

The longer this war goes, the worse things get for Russia, in many areas. They've drawn NATO closer together, plus the likely addition of two new members. They've strengthened the relationship between the USA and Europe. They have shown the weakness and ineptitude of their conventional military. And thousands and thousands of sons of Russia are coming back to the Rodina injured, in a box, or not at all. And for what?

Joe would embarrass his own administration if he went. Easily one of the most pathetic presidents in US history, if not #1.

What do you think would happen if Russia just gave up and withdrew everything by tomorrow? Do you think the world and/or US would relent?
I don't think Russia gains anything right now by backing out, we've had members of Congress openly call for the removal and assassination of Putin. More recently you have Crenshaw saying the funding is straight up for a proxy war.

 

[Givi]

2 weeks ago it was encircling donbass but now it's encircling just Severodonetsk and crossing the river. (With heavy losses)

This is wrong and a misunderstanding of what's actually going on in the field, helped by journalists having no clue either.

The offensive towards Slaviansk and Kramatorsk is also being developed while Severodonetsk is being assaulted. From the Lyman and Izyum directions, the Russians intend to attack Slaviansk, and from the Southest, the DPR is attempting to eventually link up with them in Kramatorsk, through Novhorodske though first many small cities and villages have to be taken. The LPR in the Northeast, from Popasna, has made strides towards making an UAF retreat impossible, after Komyshuvakha is taken, it's likely that Bakhmut is the next stop, where the remnants of the UAF defending Popasna and the city's garrison have barricaded themselves. In the direction of Orikhove and Toshkivska there are fights as the Chechens and LPR attempt to reach Lysychansk, completing the surrounding of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk and Novodruzhesk. There is already fighting in Pryvillia.

Crossing the river is merely part of the offensive on Lysychansk (I believe) and that goal was attained after the disastrous crossing, in two different places. Fighting is likely soon to reach, or has already reached, Serebrianka and Bilohorivka.

I would advise people to stop trying to predict on when the Russians will run out of capacity for attack. Please remember also that much of Ukraine's professional soldiers are stationed in the Donbass, as well as a lot of important and irreplaceable military equipment (tanks, SAM systems).

 

[JosephStalin]

Found this in the Air Force Times online.

From the Army Times, an interesting article about a German Cold War weapon proving deadly to Russian tanks.

https://www.armytimes.com/off-duty/gearscout/2022/05/12/panzerfaust-3-the-cold-war-weapon-wrecking-russian-tanks-in-ukraine/

https://archive.ph/OS1DL

And an Army Times article on what US Army leaders have been learning from this war. The US Army has a Center for Lessons Learned, which helps get info into the hands of all who need it, military-wide.

https://www.armytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2022/05/12/heres-what-us-army-leaders-are-learning-from-the-russia-ukraine-war/

https://archive.ph/Jvtjz

 

[UVB-76]

I came across an interesting video about weapons and the ability of the United States to project power on its satellites

We just burned through seven years of Javelins and that's not only important as we continue to try and help the Ukrainians win in Ukraine, that's important as we try to simultaneously defend Taiwan from aggression from the Chinese Communist Party. They are going to need access to some of these same weapons systems, and we simply don't have the stockpiles at present in order to backfill what we've spent in Ukraine.

A fight for Taiwan wouldn't be solved with Javelins, but anti-ship missiles.
You sink the ship, the tanks go to the bottom of the strait.

 

[Sexual Chocolate]

Bad news, comrades

 

[St.Davis]

Have already mentioned lessons learned and my concerns about the Russian ability to make the most of the lessone learned.

The war hasn't gone the way the Russians first expected or planned for. They were banking on a short, sharp decapitation strike. Didn't happen. To be sure, this happens in most, if not all wars, to varying extents. The aggressor plans to do A, expecting reaction and result B from the one attacked. "No plan survives contact with the enemy." Kyiv was proven unattainable, and now the Russians have moved away from Kharkiv, hoping to make and keep gains in the southeast. The Russians aren't doing as well as they expected. The Rodina itself has been attacked; am sure that never entered any Russian planning. And sadly, believe this war has a ways to go.

Am sure a certain amount of aid provided Ukraine has ended up sold/stolen. However, believe the corruption problem is far worse on the Russian side. Simply no reason to provide combat troops operational rations that expired four or five years ago, for example. Suggest if all the money provided for the Russian Army over the years had been used properly the Russians would be doing much better in this war.

I'm 99% sure the corruption is far worse in The Ukraine than in Russia, though both are corrupt. The Ukraine isnt/wasnt one of the poorest shitholes in Yurop for no reason.

Sure, if there was no corruption then Russia would be doing better, but I don't know what the point of stating the obvious is.

Bad news, comrades
View attachment 3282926

Are we sure that he did not merely escape to Space?

 

[East_Clintwood]

Bad news, comrades
View attachment 3282926

He's not dead, he's merely escaped to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism

Also I really wanna play RA3 again now.

 

[Sexual Chocolate]

He's not dead, he's merely escaped to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism

Also I really wanna play RA3 again now.

When vidyagames were fun AND gave you boners

 

[K-Hole]

Joe would embarrass his own administration if he went. Easily one of the most pathetic presidents in US history, if not #1.

What do you think would happen if Russia just gave up and withdrew everything by tomorrow? Do you think the world and/or US would relent?
I don't think Russia gains anything right now by backing out, we've had members of Congress openly call for the removal and assassination of Putin. More recently you have Crenshaw saying the funding is straight up for a proxy war.

If anyone has run this through as a thought experiment, it should be pretty obvious that even if Russia leaves tomorrow, claiming victory, admitting defeat, then it is still going to take a little while (I'm being understated here) before things shake out and everything goes back to 'normal'.

Normal gas prices, normal food prices, normal inflation...

But we all know it never goes back to that.

Whatever madness has gripped Putin to take on this harebrained scheme, I don't know. Maybe it's illness, maybe it's ego, maybe he's even got a point. Don't matter. But it is happening and it will continue to happen for a good time yet. Perhaps even a decade? Is that too wild of a guesstimate? I'm not even an armchair general as I admit to knowing fuck all and just watch wider patterns and trends. And I'm not the only one that can do that.

I don't see anyone claiming this war is going to end any time soon. Not now. In the first few days/months, people made wild predictions which obviously turned out to be wildly wrong. It's ok, we can all give our uninformed opinion. Even those who had an informed opinion turned out to be wrong as well.

The world is a different place now. Covid happened. It will probably happen again in some other guise, if people like Gates et al get their way. All of a sudden the conspiracy theories aren't theories any more. One thing is true, your children will grow up in a very different environment to the one in which you grew up - as different as yours was from your parents - but more 'different' again. Certainly more 'interesting'.

Someone said that All Wars Are Bankers' Wars. They may be right. Someone else said that All Wars Are Proxy Wars. They may be right as well. It's pretty obvious how this is shaping up to anyone who is paying attention. The whole planet and every country in it is being put on notice and made to take a side. I guess that's one definition of a World War. I'll let the more learned among you and the future historians decide if it's WWIII or WWZ. Who gives a fuck. It's happening.

There's a good case for all this shit happening now being the orchestrations of deeper and darker global elites. I can run with that. Might even be true. But the war still gets fought on the ground, paid for in blood sacrifice by teenage boys, and paid for in dollars by the general population who have been polled and asked abou this and of course they say they don't mind paying 10 bucks for a loaf of bread as long as it means helping those poor Ukies and sticking it to Vlad the Invader. Btw, where is Ukraine again?

And even that might be true. But what they aren't telling you is that those very same people aren't willing to go up to 11 bucks a loaf or 10 bucks a gallon. Wars cost lives. They also cost money. They also cost massive amounts of energy that this world is ill able to afford at the moment because of a worldwide energy crisis. There's a bottleneck between baking that loaf of bread you expect for 50 cents and having enough 'liquidity' in the system to supply homes next winter in a manner they are accustomed to and in a manner they can afford.

Russia didn't cause this problem even if Putin is a fucking warmonger. But Russia will make it worse. And the EU and the USA will make it all worse again by virtue signalling that they won't cheapen themselves by buying Russian fuel. Yah right. As if they haven't thought about this. As if they don't have analysts that know this is not a realistic proposition. Yet they still perpetrate this particular line of thinking for the masses, to get them on board; to pre-program about hardships to come, to give them a scapegoat to blame, and to give them hope for the future that once certain sacrifices have been made, things can only get better. They won't.

So this war won't end any time soon. It's too convenient for too many people and on top of that too many people (about 1 percent of the human population) are making too much money for them to want it to stop. Wealth transfer continues unabated. Poors most affected and BTFO.

Sure, Putin has painted himself in to a corner. Argue as much as you like. I don't care. But the game is afoot. It's not going to end tomorrow. It's not going to end next week. It most probably won't end next month. It will most probably be going on next year, or the year after...

And then and only then when it's called a 'wrap' can things pretend to get back to 'normal'. We've got a lot more stringing along and getting strung out to go yet, before this particular power-play is fully played out.

Who really knows what is going on by this point. Maybe Creepy Joe Biden and Mad Vlad the Lad Putin are enjoying a few Vodkas with Caviar in their little 'bunker' all served up by under-age children stolen from remote god-forsaken villages that none of us have even heard of.

Personally, I didn't think this war would go on longer than a week or two. But when it did, I pretty much realised it was going to go on for at least a year or two. It will only end when resources get so scarce on both sides that it makes sense to call some kind 'truce' or come to some kind of 'agreement'. I'm a dumb fuck, what do I know? But even I realise that none of this is about the little people on the ground, or what they really want, long term, anyway.

The people who farm us like cattle do not have our best interests at heart. And the more we fight and blame 'each other', the less we see the real enemy - our so called 'masters'. This is not an entirely original viewpoint, granted. And it may even be a form of 'guise guise let's all just get on mmkay'. I'll grant you that as well.

But JFC, how long can this same game be played, and how long can we all just keep falling for it?

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big believer in revenge and spite and getting your own back. People that cross certain lines need to be made to pay the price. But there is a line in the sand where that no longer becomes possible, and you become blinded by hate. It becomes impractical, and counter-productive, if nothing else.

Our leaders are not blinded by hate. They leave that to us, on both sides of the lines. In fact, they do nothing else but tell us constantly why we should HATE each other. But not them, never THEM.

Anyway.

2020 was a cracker of a year!
2021 was even better!
2022 is checking out as planned (and we're only just half way through).

I wonder what the latter part of 2023 will be like. World is moving fast.

 

[Pocket Dragoon]

Presented without comment; except that it looks fun.

 

[A_throwaway_name62919]

I'm 99% sure the corruption is far worse in The Ukraine than in Russia, though both are corrupt. The Ukraine isnt/wasnt one of the poorest shitholes in Yurop for no reason.

While it's possible that corruption in Ukraine is worse than in Russia, I'd wager that corruption specific to the military is worse in Russia than in Ukraine. Ukraine needed it's military back in 2014 and found it had a barely functional one as it lost Crimea and the revolt in Donbass took root. The looming threat of Russia moving to finish the job in some way provided a powerful incentive over the last several years to fix its military failing and discourage corruption that went so far as outright embezzlement and theft instead of buying the things that were supposed to be bought. They were successful enough at this that this time Ukraine's still standing despite a full invasion from Russia. Yes that's largely due to foreign aid, but they had their shit sufficiently in order to last long enough to get foreign aid.

Russia on the other hand has had no such incentive to fix corruption in their military. They've had limited need for their ground forces for a while, and the last guy that tried to institute some reforms was replaced because he rocked the boat too much. Makes it a lot easier to simply pocket the money for training and maintenance of stuff that'll never actually be needed unless they went to war. Similarly it makes it easier for suppliers to skim and bribe so that deliveries of substandard or even fake equipment can be made and the useless junk never gets discovered unless they need it to actually fight a war.

 

[mindlessobserver]

While it's possible that corruption in Ukraine is worse than in Russia, I'd wager that corruption specific to the military is worse in Russia than in Ukraine. Ukraine needed it's military back in 2014 and found it had a barely functional one as it lost Crimea and the revolt in Donbass took root. The looming threat of Russia moving to finish the job in some way provided a powerful incentive over the last several years to fix its military failing and discourage corruption that went so far as outright embezzlement and theft instead of buying the things that were supposed to be bought. They were successful enough at this that this time Ukraine's still standing despite a full invasion from Russia. Yes that's largely due to foreign aid, but they had their shit sufficiently in order to last long enough to get foreign aid.

Russia on the other hand has had no such incentive to fix corruption in their military. They've had limited need for their ground forces for a while, and the last guy that tried to institute some reforms was replaced because he rocked the boat too much. Makes it a lot easier to simply pocket the money for training and maintenance of stuff that'll never actually be needed unless they went to war. Similarly it makes it easier for suppliers to skim and bribe so that deliveries of substandard or even fake equipment can be made and the useless junk never gets discovered unless they need it to actually fight a war.

It honestly shows. Back in 2014 Ukraine's defense minister lamented that the country had no Army. You had video of men in old soviet gear surrendering to men in unmarked uniforms in Crimea. They weren't even willing to fire shots in anger to honor the flag like the Royal Marines at the start of the Falklands War. Which is a huge indication of a countries willingness to fight a war. When Argentina invaded the Falkland's with hundreds of troops, the Royal Marines retreated to government house and then engaged in a pitched gun battle with the invaders in front of the flag pole before surrendering. They knew they were going to lose, but honor demanded an effort be made to kill some of the invaders first. The UK would go on to defy all conventional wisdom and actually launch a naval counter offensive across thousands of miles and beat back the invasion.

I am going to once more go back to the Kiev Firefighters I saw responding to Russian Bombing back on day 2 of this war.

1 month later Ukraines firefighters are still at their post. This is actually a critical indicator and one I have been yammering on about since this started.

I said on day 2 that the fact the fire brigades were still responding meant there was no chance of an immediate Ukrainian collapse.

Firefighters are an excellent metric for determing government stability and civil strength in the face of adversity. If they continue to work, even in a scenario (like now) where they risk life and limb and are almost certainly not being paid, then the situation for Russia is grim.

On day 2 this indicated they would have a fight. On day 20, this indicates they didn't bring enough men.

 

[Simpadoo]

So, have the Russians left Karkiv? There are some people saying the Ukrainians have recovered it.

 

[mindlessobserver]

So, have the Russians left Karkiv? There are some people saying the Ukrainians have recovered it.

Russia has been forced back towards the border. They are holding on to the town of Lopan, which is up the main highway and have started to try and dig in. This is a big deal for Russia as the fighting north of Kharkiv puts the Ukrainian Army in range of the Russian city of Belgorod thanks to the arrival of US 155mm howitzers. Already residents of the city have spread on social media videos of fires glowing in the distance from burning fuel/ammo depots after Ukrainian shelling, and images of Russian attack aircraft launching missiles over the city in order to avoid entering Ukraine's air defense envelope.

Russia really does not want to give up much more ground in this theater because it will be super mega bad for a major city like Belgorod to come under direct threat. The consequence of this however may be the collapse of the Izium Salient, which is already showing signs of stress. Russia may have to sacrifice all their gains in Donbass in order to shore up the Kharkiv/Belgorod front,

 

[A_throwaway_name62919]

So, have the Russians left Karkiv? There are some people saying the Ukrainians have recovered it.

You mean Kharkiv? Russia never held it. The most recent developments is that Ukraine's pushed Russian troops back and out of artillery range of the city reducing the threat to it.

 

[Givi]

So, have the Russians left Karkiv? There are some people saying the Ukrainians have recovered it.

The Russians were never in Kharkiv, unless you mean Kharkivska Oblast, in which case, no they haven't left.

The latest from the Russian side is reported fighting at Buhruvatka, which clashes somewhat with reports that the UAF had reached the Russian border, though they may have made up a victory in the classical sense by claiming to take a village that was never in Russian control. The situation is very fluid and what is true one day, however, is untrue in the other. The Ukrainians are attempting to bait the Russians into weakening the attack towards the Donbas from the Izyum direction but the Russians are well aware of this, and there is no indication of any such action being taken. A river crossing from the Ukrainians is also a possibility, but has not happened yet. The Russians are holding in defense of Lyptsy and Kozacha Lopan after retreating without a fight from many other villages in the face of a UAF counteroffensive, and there were rumors a few days ago that the UAF was planning a large offensive towards there, but nothing has of yet materialized.

"Giving up" the Donbas front is neither a necessity nor a possibility. The at most 10,000 men involved in this counter offensive (according to Russian forces, many TDF, though this is unconfirmed) aren't nearly enough to force Russia into such a thing.